1. Field of the Invention
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to a mobile terminal having a radio frequency identification (RFID) function. More particularly, the present invention relates to a mobile terminal having an RFID function which processes both a radio signal for RFID and a radio signal for mobile communications that are transmitted and received via a single antenna in order to miniaturize the mobile terminal without having to add an antenna for the RFID to the mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an area of increasing interest in information technology is an idea of having a ubiquitous sensor network (USN) as a basic infrastructure for realizing a ubiquitous technology-based society.
The USN is a technique of attaching an electronic tag having a communication ability to all objects, sense environmental information of the surrounding based on the information relating to the identified objects which is acquired through the electronic tags, and manage and utilize the sensed information over networks in real-time. The core of the USN is a radio frequency identification (RFID) system. The RFID system is constructed using a reader, an antenna, an electronic tag, a server, and a network. The reader serves to read or store information from the electronic tag. The antenna is used to exchange data stored in the electronic tag at a predefined frequency in conformity with a prescribed protocol.
The convergence of the RFID system and the mobile communications leads to the development of the new technique and services called a mobile RFID (mRFID). In the mRFID, an electronic tag, a reader, an antenna, and a processing module are attached to a mobile terminal so as to read out information from other electronic tags and provide useful information services to a user, or to transmit information from the mobile terminal to other devices via the electronic tag of the mobile terminal.
The RFID antenna used for the mRFID transmits and receives the radio signal in the band ranging from 908.5 MHz to 914 MHz, whereas the antenna used for communications of the mobile terminal transmits and receives the radio signal in the band of 800 MHz. As one can see, the band of the RFID radio signal is not far different from the band of the mobile communication radio signal. Yet, in case that the mobile communication antenna of a related art mobile terminal adopts the narrow band, it is hard to transmit and receive the RFID radio signal. Thus, for the implementation of the mRFID technique, the related art mobile terminal is typically equipped with the RFID antenna and the mobile communication antenna, separately.
However, when the RFID antenna and the mobile communication antenna are provided respectively, the mobile terminal is prone to size enlargement. This size enlargement is contrary to the ongoing development of the mobile terminal toward the compactness of the mobile terminal through miniaturizing and integrating the mobile communication antenna.
In this regard, it is possible to avoid the size enlargement of the mobile terminal due to a plurality of antennas, by transmitting and receiving both the RFID radio signal and the mobile communication radio signal via a single antenna.